Trifesta - Triathlon

Breakfast was at McDonalds - some oatmeal and an egg white McMuffin, plus some milk and a latte - carbs, sugar, caffeine. Got a solid night's sleep, with a nice spaghetti dinner.

We got there a bit early, racked our bikes, set up for transitions, and registered.

Event warmup:

Relaxed a bit, some stretching, and a couple laps in the pool.

Swim

10m 42s

400 yards

02m 41s / 100 yards

Comments:

Wow, I was not ready for this pool at all. All my previous swims were in shallow lap pools, and this pool was 15' at the deep end. I'm also afraid of heights, so looking down in the deep end caused me to panic rather badly. After the first three laps, I started to close my eyes and let the lane line guide me, so I wouldn't panic. My swim was very poor, and probably at least 2min slower than it should have been.

I also haven't been in the water in close to a month, so my form was terrible and everything was rusty.

What would you do differently?:

I did not expect the panic, and it is something I will need to work on. It's purely psychological, and my master's swimming program should help when it starts next week.

Transition 1

01m 53s

Comments:

My first real transition, very smooth. Sat down, put on the shoes, and ready to rock. I was happy with it.

What would you do differently?:

Need to practice more, and I should use the bucket method.

Bike

41m 49s

14.07 miles

20.25 mile/hr

Comments:

All right, my strong suit. I passed about 9 people on the bike, which I found great. Average pace was north of 20mph, which was shy of my goal of 22mph, but still acceptable.

What would you do differently?:

Unfortunately, my taper rides got the best of me, and what should have been a 25mile ride on Thursday turned into a 45 mile ride with 1,700 feet of climbing, and on Friday what should have been a light spin turned into a hammerfest due to some emergency roadside issues, so I brought a little more fatigue into the event than I wanted.
I'm also too squirrely in aero, so I need to practice that.

Transition 2

01m 48s

Comments:

Smooth transition, happy with it. I hit the timer button a little late, so it should only be about 60 seconds.

What would you do differently?:

Bucket method.

Run

25m

3 miles

08m 28s min/mile

Comments:

Good run. The inital half mile was pretty poor, but overall I was happy with the effort.

What would you do differently?:

Need to do more bricks, to get used to the pain, and toughen up.

Post race

Warm down:

Gatorade, walked a bit.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Took too much fatigue into the race from the previous days.

Event comments:

I wish there was more information available. A good website and more information would go a long way to make things better.